Bacci, I think that your view is just a little simplistic. All things being equal, yes a smaller population would be preferable to most people including myself.
The issue is that Australia has an ageing population which will to varying degrees all demand government financial support (either through medicare refunds, other subsidies and the good old pension.) This is all fine if there are the tax paying workers to pay for all this expenditure but there wont be...unless we increase our population. Indeed i suspect that the population increase suggested by the government would only go part of the way to reducing the financial disparity.
The remainder will probably be made up by increasing incentives for people to work for longer and increased taxes. Without population increases either most older Australians would be forced to work far longer, then basically left to fend for themselves on whatever money they have been able to save, or the rest of the population would be taxed exorbitantly. Unless of course you prefer the government to run up increasingly massive deficits until there is some sort of calamitous recession when they eventually cannot pay their foreign debts. It is really a catch 22 situation for the government.
The arguments you present about the environmental issues are partly correct. in terms of the localised effect on the australian landscape. However the bulk of the poulation increase will be from migration which means those people will already be on this planet. the fact that they live here makes no difference if we are talking about global environmental issues such as greenhouse gases.
Also your arguments about Australias mining and farming wealth are just plain wrong. Australias GDP is far more reliant on our services sector than mining and farming contrary to your statement. Furthermore Australia is able to compete internationally in mining production however less people means higher labour costs (and a greater demand for skilled migration)and at some point, unless there are huge productivity gains, this reduces australias competetiveness for mining investment especially when combined with a decreasing number of high quality deposits. LDR
